LIONS: THE BUSINESS OF BATTLE

Male lions run a harrowing, years-long gauntlet to reach adulthood. When they finally reach their prime, bloodshed is a foregone conclusion.

Lions were once the most globally widespread mammal species, with distinct populations in Africa, Eurasia, and America. 

The oldest fossil evidence of lions is just under 1.5 million years old. We do know that Panthera spelaea and Panthera leo had an ancestor almost two million years ago. 

This means there are half a million years' worth of lion evolution we have not yet found in the fossil record. And whether fossilized or modern, their lineage shows signs of battle and trial by fire all the way through.

I have seen many a Male lion sporting a lost eye or scratches across its face—souvenirs obtained in the heat of the hunt. 

When your face is the business end of your biological machinery, the focal point of the operation, the hardware responsible for countless annihilations, somewhere along the line it is gonna take a few hits. 

As it stands, male lions already have a much harder come up when compared to their female counterparts, who can stay with the pride they are born with indefinitely. 

Males get kicked out when they are between 12-18-months old, and are left to fend for themselves in the harsh African bushland. If they are lucky, they may be blessed with a brother or two from the same litter and be able to help form a coalition outside of their former pride. 

This provides a slight advantage over the lone male that gets forced out into the great unknown. In both scenarios, the road to adulthood is long and extremely hard. For the handful that do make it, they get to experience a redemption arc that only a seldom few may claim. 

Literally discarded by their former pride, years later they return to wreak havoc on the archetypical old guard. This is done out of necessity, of course, not to sate any retributive lust, but if some part of them was holding on to some vengeful baggage, you really couldn't blame them.